You Can Sit With Us

I’ve always been around lots of girls. Probably sounds a bit strange – let me explain. At primary school I thought boys were completely gross (obvs) so mainly hung out with girls. Then I went to an all girls secondary school. This gave a pretty good representation of the many different types of ladies out there and was basically one big learning curve as to how to deal with them. I didn’t go to uni, so then it was out into the big wide world.

In my post about being a career driven woman, I touched on the concept of us girls being strong, positive role models for younger generations, but having thought about it a bit more, I decided to write about it separately.

Growing up, I seem to recall this element of competition when we got to about thirteen years old. Who looked the best; who wore expensive clothes; who the boys liked; where people went at the weekend; who got drunk; who was the ‘coolest’. It’s quite sad to look back on. I had a fantastic time at school and my general perception of the whole experience was that it was fun and I do genuinely believe that some competition is healthy, generally speaking. But this competitive nature of appearance and popularity amongst young girls is really quite damaging. It changes your perception of yourself. My point, though, is that some people carry this attitude through to adulthood.

As I got older I started to gain an understanding of what being a woman means and developed an appreciation for all of the things that come with it. Feminism, the suffragette movement, the gender pay gap and, as well as this, the Mean Girls mentality. The idea that we’re all in competition with each other and I don’t like her because she’s got nice curly hair. I’m not saying that everyone is like this because they’re definitely not, but if nothing else, it’s at least something to think about.

Women must support and build each other. Women must allow other women to succeed and achieve. Not only that, but we should support it. We are a generation of working women – if we want to be. We are a generation of highly skilled, powerful women – if we want to be. We are a generation of teaching our children that women should be paid no less than men – if we want to be. We are a generation of showing other women just how powerful they can be, and helping them to get there. What kind of woman do you want to be?

Hi, I'm Hannah. One evening in 2015 I decided that I needed a creative space that I could do whatever I wanted with. The overwhelming desire to write made the decision to start a blog very, very easy. Little Thoughts was born out of sheer passion. I hope you enjoy it as much as I do.